A thorough review of Second Language Acquisition research designs revealed to Ph.D. Candidate Hui-Chen Hsieh the need to examine thoroughly the role of practice in second language acquisition. She then decided to research the unanswered question of whether it is practice, feedback, or a combination of these two variables that contributes to subsequent L2 performance. In addition, she planned to integrate measurements of awareness and perception of treatment conditions into her research.

Ms. Hsieh's study seeks to investigate the effects of practice and feedback on L2 learners' recognition of and written and oral production of the Spanish verb structure-exemplified by the verb gustar. In pursuit of this study, Ms. Hsieh sought CNDLS's assistance in building a web-based application that would randomly deliver her experimental treatments (encased within a 'treasure hunt' game format) and record student interaction and response times to a database. The CNDLS developer built an integrated ColdFusion-based application which allowed Ms. Hsieh to randomize her test batteries and treatments, keeping tight control of the timing and sequencing of questions.

The researcher randomly assigned first-semester students of Spanish who participated in the study to one of the following computerized conditions: PRONLY [+ Practice, - feedback], PRIFB [+Practice, +Implicit feedback], PREFB [+Practice, +Explicit feedback], EXPONLY [-Practice, -feedback], EXPIFB [-Practice, +Implicit feedback], or EXPEFB [-Practice, +Explicit feedback]. In order to investigate the relationship between learners' awareness and the targeted structures within the different treatment conditions, participants were also required to think aloud while completing grammatical tasks. "Screen sharing" showed the effects of input-based practice on L2 learners by allowing the [+Practice] groups to control the game in the treatment modules, while the [-Practice] groups were only to observe what was done by the [+Practice] participants.

The think aloud protocols help establish whether attention is indeed being paid to targeted verbal structures. To measure the learners' ability to recognize and produce the targeted grammatical structure, the study employed a pretest - posttest - delayed posttest design. Ms. Hsieh used technology to better control some previous limitations to existing experimental designs. In this way, the use of technology has led to finding stronger empirical evidence, clarifying the role of input-based practice and feedback in L2 learning, while also clarifying the effect of such practice on learner's attention and/or awareness.

The data from 2006 is currently being codified. A full-fledged analysis is to be featured in Ms. Hsieh's upcoming doctoral dissertation.